---
title: Perhaps now, in my hour of need, they may be of use to me.’ — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Perhaps now, in my hour of need, they may be of use to me.’ Who acts: ways. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 170

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Perhaps now, in my hour of need, they may be of use to me.’

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**Who acts:** ways · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** me

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ways), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:12:170
# text = Perhaps now, in my hour of need, they may be of use to me.’
1	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	need	need	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | may | ways *= way* |  | me |  | now; hour | of use | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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